


Combat Boots & Dirty Hair (Don't Add Up To "Cool")

by dear_monday



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance, The Used
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Gen, M/M, Warped Tour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-28
Updated: 2011-11-28
Packaged: 2017-10-26 15:40:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/284971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dear_monday/pseuds/dear_monday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Bert scratches idly at an unidentifiable stain on her t-shirt. It flakes off under her nails, and she lifts her hand to her mouth like she's seriously considering licking it. Quinn wonders vaguely if she should intervene, then decides against it. Bert's going to have to learn somehow.</i> In which Quinn is ready to murder the next person who so much as thinks the word "married" in conjunction with her and Bert, and Warped '04 is almost definitely the human race's low point in terms of standards of personal hygiene. Written for the <a href="http://moldypitsandall">moldypitsandall</a> dirty bandom challenge @ livejournal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Combat Boots & Dirty Hair (Don't Add Up To "Cool")

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [synonomy](http://synonomy.livejournal.com) and [verbyna](http://verbyna.livejournal.com) for motivation and encouragement ♥ companion mix [here](http://pseudopatient.livejournal.com/6178.html).

Quinn is sprawled out as much as possible on the tiny bus couch, beer in hand and Bert's head in her lap as they half-watch some dumb reality TV show.  
   
"Your hair is fucking disgusting," she informs Bert, as she gives up on trying to card her free hand through it. It's a mess of patchy bleach and countless packets of cheap, faded color, and it's tangled all to hell and caked in enough grease to un-beach a whale. Quinn wouldn't be all that surprised if there were things _living_ in there.  
   
"You can wash it for me tomorrow," Bert yawns, shifting her head slightly on Quinn's thigh. Bert scratches idly at an unidentifiable stain on her t-shirt. It flakes off under her nails, and she lifts her hand to her mouth like she's seriously considering licking it. Quinn wonders vaguely if she should intervene, then decides against it. Bert's going to have to learn somehow. Besides, it can be belated payback for the last time Bert took offence at one of Quinn's personal hygiene initiatives. It took Quinn six weeks and twenty-three inventively horrifying revenge strategies to stop everyone calling her Q-tip.  
   
"Deal," agrees Quinn, knocking back the last of her beer. "But only because it's about a week away from being a public health risk. It's worse than _Gerard's_ , for fuck's sake, and his is practically a separate organism to the rest of him."  
   
"Hey," protests Gerard from the other couch. "My hair isn't _that_ bad."  
   
They both ignore him.  
   
"Aw, you only treat me bad because you love me," Bert drawls in a truly awful southern accent, _y'only treat me ba-yd_ , twisting so she can leer up at Quinn. Quinn cracks a lopsided half-smile.  
   
"You know it, baby," she agrees, leering back and sticking one hand down Bert's skirt to make her point. Bert squirms and shrieks, her laughter easy and dirty. Gerard stands up quickly and Quinn blinks at him in mild consternation; she'd completely forgotten he was there.  
   
"I'm gonna, um," he says, looking deeply uncomfortable. "Like, leave you to it?" He bolts for the door, leaving them alone on the bus.  
   
"Fuck _me_ ," says Bert, visibly impressed, after a moment of silence. "I haven't seen him move that fast since he walked in on his little brother sucking Pete Wentz's dick."  
   
"No shit," agrees Quinn. She frowns, and silence reigns briefly. Then, she says, "Bert?"  
   
"You too, right? Wondering what the shit is up with fucking _everyone_ thinking we're together?" Bert's expression is genuinely mystified. "How many times have we told them?"  
   
"I mean, it's _you_. It'd be fucking _weird_. No offence."  
   
Bert sighs deeply and slumps back against Quinn. "Totally weird."  
   
"Totally. Swear to god, I'm gonna punch the next person who calls us married or what the fuck ever. Or we could make Frank prank them, that'd work."  
   
(Frank's practical jokes, Quinn discovered approximately fifteen seconds after meeting him, are the shit. They're creative and disgusting and often involve jizz. They're nearly as good as Bert's, but Quinn is still working on getting Bert to grasp the concept of _plausible deniability_.)  
   
"Do it. Maybe then we won't have to hear it every day. Fucking morons. We're not _married_ , Jesus fucking Christ."  
   
"Right? Okay, come on. I haven't slept since Kansas City. We're going to bed."  
   
Bert groans in token resistance, but moves over enough that Quinn can get up and drag Bert after her. Leaning heavily on each other, they stumble through to the bunks. Bert stops next to Quinn's.  
   
"Mine is _far_. I'm sleeping here," she announces, her expression hovering between steely determination and the puppy eyes no functioning human could resist. It's a lethal combination and Bert knows it. Quinn looks over at Bert's bunk and estimates that it would take her three seconds, tops, to get over there if she really wanted to.  
   
"Alright," she says anyway. Bert positively _beams_ , and climbs in. It doesn't take a genius to see that these bunks really weren't built for more than one person, and Bert's face ends up pressed into Quinn's neck while their limbs tangle together under the creased, sweaty sheets.  
   
"You smell," mumbles Bert. "Don't know why you're always bitching at _me_ for my fuckin' hygiene issues."  
   
"Oh, fuck you," retorts Quinn, sleepy and half-hearted, pinching the soft, vulnerable spot just behind Bert's elbow and eliciting a satisfying grunt of pain. "I wanted to shower yesterday, remember? The only thing stopping me was the fact that some fucking shit-for-brains idiot put a _cat_ in there."  
   
"Oh, yeah," Bert giggles. "Shit, I'd forgotten about that. Come on, you can't tell me that wasn't fucking hilarious."  
   
Quinn disagrees on principle and deflects by asking whose cat it was anyway and how the fuck Bert persuaded its owner to lend it to her – because, really, who in their right mind would trust Bert with a _goldfish_ , let alone a cat? But despite the thin scratches criss-crossing her arms and hands and the tour grime still sitting on her skin, Quinn secretly thinks that, okay, it was actually pretty funny.  
   
"Night, bitch," says Bert indistinctly, nuzzling affectionately at Quinn.  
   
"Night," Quinn murmurs back, pressing a kiss to Bert's temple. Fuck what everyone says, fuck _married_. Those dicks don't know what they're talking about.  
   
"I know, man," Bert says earnestly, doing that disconcerting mind-reading thing again. Quinn actually doesn't mind it as much as some people do; Bert lifting words right out of her head just saves her the trouble of having to say them. Bert wriggles into a position where their hipbones aren't clashing and ends up with her face buried in Quinn's chest and her arms around her waist. "We're, like. We're so fucking platonic it isn't even funny."  
   
"Totally," agrees Quinn.  
   
 

+

   
   
The next day, Quinn _tells_ Bert that they're washing her hair, because _asking_ is for the weak and those inexperienced in dealing with Bert McCracken. Bert goes willingly (or, well. Almost. Willingly but for a mock-shocked, "Quinn _Allman_ , is this gonna be like the _last_ time you lured me into a bathroom to have your wicked way with me?", which draws a few interested looks from a pack of nearby techs. Quinn flips them the bird before dragging Bert away).  
   
Quinn staggers out of the shower block two hours later, soaked through and wearing an expression descriptive of infinite and unknowable horror. Bert bounces out right behind her, sing-songing, "Look, look! Quinn made me pretty again!"  
   
Gerard, who has this fucking _talent_ for materialising out of thin air when you least need him, laughs so hard his cigarette falls out of his mouth. Frank laughs too, because he's an obnoxious little shit who's surgically joined at the hip to Gerard.  
   
Quinn raises an eyebrow at Gerard. "Don't know what _you're_ laughing at," she says. "You're next, Way."  
   
Frank is still laughing (see: obnoxious little shit), but the stupid, smug grin vanishes off Gerard's face gratifyingly quickly and Quinn feels the warm smugness of a job well done.  
   
 

+

   
   
The club that night was not one of Quinn's better ideas. Keeping one eye on Bert is proving to be fucking difficult. It happened about half an hour ago, when Quinn was distracted by the sight of the dude from Gogol Bordello trying to demonstrate some bizarre and alarming dance to Dan, Branden and half of Avenged Sevenfold. She's pretty sure she subsequently tried to find someone with a camera and only just avoided getting dragged in herself, and _that's_ when Bert gave her the slip. She suspects that this is what Bert loves so much about Warped: the _opportunities_.  
   
"Hey, Quinn?"  
   
She turns, relieved, to see Bert bouncing on the balls of her feet in time with the music and swaying a little, with an expression that usually does not foreshadow good things. She looks strange under the lights, her cheekbones and lips and the hollows of her eyes cast in neon blue and the shadows deep, liquid black.  
   
"What?" she asks, cautiously, ready to refuse outright if this is another one of Bert's Fun Ideas, which are usually just cunningly disguised ploys to get to ride in the back of an ambulance. Again. She learnt a long time ago that the answer to "Hey, wanna see a neat trick?" is always, _always_ no.  
   
"That guy over there? I'm trying to get into his pants. Make out with me?"  
   
"You – Bert, come on, we talked about this. I'm not making out with you so you can get laid. It's morally wrong and, like, exploitative. You're... manipulating him. Or something."  
   
"Yeah. So? When did you sprout a moral compass? It's not even like you're not into girls or anything. You never minded before, you sound like _Gerard_."  
   
"...That was unnecessary. And you're gross, I don't know where you've been."  
   
"Aw, come on, you disinfected the fuck out of me earlier, this is about as un-gross as I'm ever gonna be. Anyway, you know exactly where I've been. You were there too."  
   
Quinn sighs. "Yeah, point _._ Alright, then, but this is the last fucking time this is happening, or I will tell Gerard and you will never hear the fucking end of it, so help me."  
   
"But we're fucking with heteronormativity. He'd give me a fucking gold star."  
   
"Pretty sure you only get gold stars when you're only doing politically, not when you're doing it to get laid, Bert."  
   
"Huh. Yeah, maybe. Whatever. Shut up and kiss me, Allman."  
   
Quinn leans obligingly towards Bert, playing into it when Bert's hands snake around her waist and the back of her neck. Bert tastes like cheap vodka, and Quinn parts her lips slightly as Bert licks into her mouth and makes a suitably pornographic noise when Bert kisses down her neck.  
   
"This would be so much easier if you weren't so fucking tall. What are you, a fucking giant?" mutters Bert, her teeth grazing Quinn's throat.  
   
"How does anyone resist you, seriously? And I'm not that tall, you're the short one, fuck you. Is he looking yet?" Quinn retorts, hoping she looks as if she's whispering sweet nothings in Bert's ear.  
   
"I can't _see_. Hold on." Bert peers over Quinn's shoulder. "Yeah, he's looking. Awesome. I am _so_ good." She runs a hand down over Quinn's ass and grinds up against her one last time for good measure, then darts away, presumably in pursuit of the unfortunate dude.  
   
Quinn sighs again, picks her drink up off the bar and knocks back a burning mouthful. She's not entirely sure what's in it, only that it's called a Blowjob or a Multiple Orgasm or something else that Bert thought was so hilarious that _everyone_ should have one. It's too sweet, but drinkable, and strong enough that she'll be drunk enough to dance before long, at least.  
   
"Ouch," says a flat but sympathetic voice from somewhere to her right. "That had to hurt."  
   
She turns to look at whoever it is with the infinite superiority of the slightly drunk. It turns out to be Gerard's little brother – the skinny one with the dorky glasses who is somehow rocking a stupid hat, a fuckload of eyeliner and a skin-tight, stripy t-shirt that she would describe as gay-French-pirate-esque. Mikey, she remembers after a long, blurred moment.  
   
"What did?" she asks blankly.  
   
"Well, you and Bert, right? And then she just, like, _uses_ you, man. Doesn't that... I don't know, bother you? Like, at all?"  
   
His eyes are big and earnest and disconcertingly like his brother's, and Quinn tries very hard not to pour the rest of her drink all over Mikey Way and his stupid hat.  
   
 

+

   
   
"'M dying, Quinn," slurs Bert several hours later with a mixture of mournfulness and solemnity.  
   
"Probably," Quinn says, holding Bert's hair back off her clammy forehead as she retches again. "Wow, throwing up in an alley, though. What a way to go."  
   
"Righ'?" Bert agrees, brightening even as her shoulders heave. A siren flares briefly, then dies away again.  
   
"Oh, man, you know what?" says Quinn, as a sudden thought pierces through the warm, fuzzy haze fogging her brain. "I'm _really_ glad you're not a sad drunk. This part would be so fucking depressing."  
   
Bert giggles weakly, then hiccups. "One of the many, _many_ reasons you love me." She coughs a rattling smoker's cough, spits, then stands unsteadily. "Think tha's all of it," she says, leaning heavily on Quinn.  
   
"You good? Not dying anymore?"  
   
"Still dying a li'l bit. S'okay, I can walk. Sort of. Just, gimme a minute to... yeah."  
   
Quinn keeps her thoughts about Bert's ability walk to herself. She knows from experience that if she doesn't, Bert will immediately try to prove her wrong by running. Probably into a wall. Again. Instead, she says, "What happened with the guy?"  
   
"...The guy? Oh, that – that guy, yeah. Pretty sure we fucked in the bathroom."  
   
"How was it?"  
   
"Re... reget... no, what the fuck? _Regrettable_ ," she says, slow and careful. "My fuckin' teeth are numb. I _am_ dying, I fucking told you so. You're totally a better kisser. He was a dick, didn't even get me off."  
   
Quinn pats Bert's shoulder and smoothes her hair back. "Some of them are," she says sadly. "Some of them are, there's jack shit you can do about it. Come on, let's get you to bed."  
   
"'F you want. Ugh, 'm such a fucking cliché. What am I, the – the poster girl for this shit?"  
   
"My _favourite_ poster girl," Quinn reassures her. "You're the most badass fucking walking cliché I ever met. Embrace it."  
   
"Love you," mumbles Bert. Her head lolls against Quinn's shoulder, and Quinn wrinkles her nose at the wave of booze-sex-sweat-smoke-puke. "I mean," Bert continues earnestly, "You, right, but – but mostly your tits. Have I told you that this week? I love the rest of you as... as well, okay, but mostly your tits. I wish mine were that good," she says, looking sadly down at the front of her t-shirt. Quinn thinks it says something about her, or Bert, or maybe both of them, that this declaration doesn't faze her at all. As Bert's drunken confessions of undying love go, this is by far one of the least surprising and embarrassing.  
   
"Hey, hey. A B-cup is nothing to be ashamed of," Quinn says, very seriously. Bert half-smiles and sways slightly, and Quinn loops an arm around her shoulders before she can topple over and crack her head open.  
   
"You – take me home, Quinn?" she says, her voice slanting upwards a little, questioning, like a lost child's. "I'm a bit..." she waves a hand in a vague, swirling gesture that's oddly hypnotic in the dim almost-dawn. A bit spaced, a bit fucked up.  
   
"Yeah," Quinn says, like there was ever another answer to that. "Yeah, come on." She's about to press a kiss to the top of Bert's head, then thinks better of it at the last moment. She fucking adores Bert, sure, but not quite enough to risk getting some nasty virus or some shit like that. Probably rabies.  
   
"Love you too. Bed," she repeats more firmly, and they start on the long walk back to the bus.  
   
 

+

   
   
The next day (or just at a more reasonable hour of that morning, Quinn supposes, if you want to split hairs) Bert's voice breaks noisily into her consciousness. It feels, she decides, like a pneumatic drill going into a particularly persistent headache. There's actually a bitching headache in there as well, she realises, and it would be much easier to deal with if there weren't people making _noise_.  
   
"No, dude, I don't think you get it," Bert is saying, from somewhere not _nearly_ distant enough from Quinn's bunk. "Like. I'm not just hungover. I am hung over and over and fucking _over_."  
   
There's a hoarse laugh, and then another voice – nasal and scratchy; Gerard's, she thinks – counters with, "Fuck, this isn't even a hangover. This is just a _morning_."  
   
He sounds fucking terrible, Quinn notes with vague, sleepy detachment. She sincerely hopes that Frank is going to be _all_ up in that shit with honey and lemon or something before their show later. She makes a little unhappy noise in the back of her throat, and buries her face in her pillow, trying really, _really_ hard not to think about why it smells the way it does. Maybe if she ignores them hard enough they'll go away and she can go back to sleep.  
   
"You know," says Bert conversationally to probably-Gerard, "You're fucking _loud_ when you jerk off. I'm gonna be generous and assume it was 'cause you were shitfaced, but, seriously. Holy shit. How have your band not killed you in your sleep yet?"  
   
"...I was jerking off? On your bus?" He hesitates, and sounds faux-casual/seriously uncomfortable when he speaks again. "I didn't... I didn't _say_ anything, did I? I wasn't, like – talking, right?"  
   
"What, you don't remember? Nah, no names. Sucks, I was kind of hoping we'd have something to blackmail you with. But, like, you might as well have a big fucking neon sign pointing to your massive hard-on for Frank anyway, so. You were so wasted, I'm surprised you could even get it up," Bert continues cheerfully over Gerard's choked noise of protest. "I mean, I know it's hard to find the privacy and all – Quinn's caught me with my panties down so many times, oh my god, I lost count after, like, the first ten – but you better not have jizzed on anything in here. Seriously, Quinn'll cut your dick off and feed it to something. You were all, _ah, ah, ah, fu-u-uck_ , _ohhh_ – "  
   
"Shut _up_ , shutupshutupshutup," groans Quinn, grinding the heels of her hands into her eye sockets as if that's going to erase the memory of the last ten seconds. "Oh my fucking god, it is _too early_. Bert, there are things I did not _ever_ want to know. What Gerard sounds like when he comes was one of those, and now I'm never, _ever_ going to be able to un-know. Fuck you very much. Both of you. What's Gerard even doing here? Doesn't he have his own bus?" she sits up slowly, avoiding cracking her head on the low ceiling only by muscle memory and cringing as the spike of pain between her eyes flares. When she opens her eyes, she sees Bert with her arms wrapped around Gerard's neck and a pleading expression that reads, _can we keep him?_ Only it isn't a stray dog, it's a hungover, greasy, unshaven dude in giant, face-eating sunglasses and a Bouncing Souls shirt.  
   
"He couldn't find his bus," Bert explains, as though this should be obvious.  
   
"His bus is _next to our bus_."  
   
"It is?" This, apparently, is news to Gerard.  
   
"Oh. Well, now you know," says Bert, still too loud in the confined space as she untangles herself from Gerard. Quinn tries vainly to disappear into the thin mattress. "So, hey, Quinn," Bert continues. "Tampons? I just woke up and mother nature's all, bloody panties for _you_ , Bert McCracken. I'm on my last one, where are you stashing yours?"  
   
Quinn grunts. She isn't feeling excessively charitable this morning. "What's it worth to you?"  
   
"Sexual favours," answers Bert promptly, then adds after a moment of consideration, "And I'll brush my teeth."  
   
"Done. Packet's in the lining of my backpack, you'll have to tear it to get to them."  
   
"You are _awesome_. And, like, cunning and shit, that was a good hiding place, no wonder I didn't find them this time. Imma go bum some Advil or something off someone in a bit, I've got fucking cramps like you would not _believe._ "  
   
"Um," says Gerard. He looks faintly green. Bert turns to him, aggrieved.  
   
"Oh, man _up_ , Gerard, for fuck's sake. Aren't you all about, like, expressing your inner self and shit? Jesus, talk about double standards. You go on stage every night looking like fucking Ted Bundy and the fact that my vagina is bleeding grosses you out?"  
   
"No? I. Personal freedom and self-expression, yeah, that shit's important," Gerard whimpers, but he still looks pretty queasy, and Quinn enjoys a brief moment of schadenfreude.  
   
"You should try sharing a bus with them," comes Jepha's voice from his bunk. "Dude, it gets _so_ much worse, you have no idea."  
   
Bert blows him a kiss.  
   
 

+

   
   
Quinn watches Bert on stage that night, arms spread and feet planted wide apart, standing at five foot four in a filthy, ironically demure sundress and shit-kicker boots. She's got her back to Quinn as she stares down the crowd – the cheers and screams as they walked out onto the stage were littered with catcalls and ragged shouts of laughter, and, well. Quinn wouldn't want to be any of those kids right now. She knows nothing gets Bert going like an unfriendly crowd. Bert's facing out into the audience, but Quinn can imagine her snarl, the tilt of her chin. Silence falls, and Quinn feels a little, warm swell of pride. Bert is so fucking _fierce_.  
   
"So," she croons into the mic, her voice deceptively soft. She twirls a strand of clean-ish hair around one finger, triggering an odd burst of cognitive dissonance for Quinn, who's more used to seeing Bert with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. "Any of you _fuckers_ – " her voice rises suddenly to a war cry, and the collective shudder and recoil in the pit is palpable. " – brave enough to come up here?"  
   
Nothing.  
   
"What, _none_ of you?" She turns to look behind her, wide-eyed, hair already a tangled halo around her face and the remains of dark eyeliner smeared in all directions. "Can you _believe_ that? Quinn? Branden? Jepha? None of those big guys man enough to come up here? I mean..." she gestures to herself, turning back to the crowd. "I'm only a little girl, right?" She waits, gives them a chance to answer back. They don't. "Well, alright, then. But if any of you suddenly grow a pair?" She leans forward, conspiratorial, but Quinn's known her for too long to miss the tension in her shoulders and the curve of her spine. "I fucking _fight_ like a girl, too," she whispers into the mic, and then she's spitting and spinning away and they're off.  
   
 

+

   
   
About halfway through their set, Quinn looks up from her fretboard to see Bert _right_ _there_. Up close, Bert looks strange and hyper-real, breathing hard and grinning like a maniac, her hair sticking to her sweat-slick forehead. She smells like exhilaration, which is sharp and sour and really not as nice as it sounds. Quinn wrinkles up her nose and sticks her tongue out at Bert, not missing a note. Bert's grin is quick and nasty as she pauses to breathe, then darts around Quinn to press up warm and sweaty behind her. Quinn squirms in a way that she hopes conveys _gross, gross, you are so gross and I do not love you_ nearly _enough for this shit_ , but Bert ignores her (probably because she knows it's a dirty lie), presses closer, and shoves a sticky hand down the front of Quinn's damp t-shirt, just because she can. This shit is really Frank and Gerard's area, but no one seems to be complaining.  
   
Then, Bert licks her hand, because she's _Bert_ and this is just what she _does_.  
   
 

+

   
   
"Hey." Quinn tugs Bert aside as they walk off the stage. "That was fucking awesome."  
   
Bert's smile is _huge_. It's the one Quinn thinks of as the universe's payback for the street years, the one she thinks Bert deserves every time. Bert yanks her into a bone-crushing hug, burying her face in Quinn's shoulder.  
   
"I'm _always_ fucking awesome. Not going soft on me, are you?" she mumbles, but Quinn can feel her smiling. Bert's heart is still jackhammering from the stage high, Quinn can feel it even through two layers of sweat-soaked cotton and skin.  
   
"Oh, shut the fuck up," she says into Bert's slightly-less-disgusting-than-usual hair. "You know what I mean."  
   
Bert nods an affirmative into Quinn's neck, then pulls away, still grinning, and drags Quinn after Branden and Jepha.  
   
"Hotel night!" crows Bert, flinging herself into Branden's arms because he happens to be closest. He catches her, just, and she wraps her legs around his waist and clings. "Alright, who wants to room with me? All of you, right? Ooh, maybe I'll make you fight each other for it! Like, gladiator-style. I'm telling you now, I'd bet on Quinn, she fights dirty. I'll share with whoever wins, though, who's up first?"  
   
"Quinn?" says Jepha. "Want to share?"  
   
"You can't," says Bert immediately, clambering down off Branden and biting his hand affectionately. "You can have Branden, Jepha, _I'm_ sharing with Quinn. We're gonna paint our nails and braid each other's hair and talk about diets and shoes and faking orgasms and how men don't understand our feelings. It's gonna be _great_."  
   
Jepha's face contorts with the strain of imagining this. " _Really?_ People actually... _do_ that?"  
   
"No, asshole," says Bert fondly. "Jesus wept, you _believed_ that shit? We're gonna get high and watch a shitty B movie and pass out, like _normal_ people." She throws her arms around Jepha and plants a kiss on his cheek. "Love you really. Or do I? Ooh, _burn!_ Anyway, you snore." she laughs, free and bright and slightly unhinged, then gropes Jepha's ass and seizes Quinn by the arm before barrelling up the stairs with Quinn in tow.  
   
 

+

   
   
"Qui-i-inn," Bert whines, at some unholy hour of the following morning, stretching the word out over three syllables. She grabs a handful of Quinn's short, newly-bright hair and pulls. "I'm _bored._ "  
   
"Ow, you bitch, that still hurts from the bleach," grumbles Quinn, swatting ineffectually at Bert. "And, ew, your hands are all sweaty."  
   
Bert wipes her hand on the side of Quinn's face to show exactly how sorry she is. "Aww, poor baby. My heart, it breaks. Is there any OJ left?"  
   
"Dunno, let me check." Quinn rolls off the double bed and onto the scratchy hotel carpet. She opens the door of the minibar and peers in. "No OJ," she says, enjoying the cool air lapping at her cheekbones. The A/C is comprehensively fucked and it's hot as hell already even though it's – she checks the alarm clock on her nightstand – barely eight a.m., Jesus Christ. They're both wearing as little as they can get away with: short shorts and a much-abused tank top for Quinn; a pair of men's boxers and nothing else for Bert. "I think we used it all to make Screwdrivers."  
   
"What the shit. What excuse for a minibar doesn't have OJ? Okay, then, what about that cranberry juice we found?"  
   
"I think all that went into the Cosmopolitans."  
   
"Fuck. What _do_ we have?"  
   
"Um... there's some of that nasty fake lime juice left, if you're interested."  
   
"Ew, I'm not drinking that. It tastes like pee."  
   
Quinn has known Bert far too long to question her certainty on that, so she lets it slide.  
   
"What _do_ we have?" Bert repeats as Quinn turns back to her, with a melodramatic sigh. Bert stretches like a cat, the sunlight streaming through the window outlining the slight swell of her stomach between her hipbones and glinting on the silver bar through her nipple. The fact that it didn't even get infected once was nearly enough to make Quinn believe in miracles. Bert's knees and elbows are skinned and scraped, as usual, and there's a bruise blossoming over one of her hipbones and the faint scar of a deep gash on the her inner thigh. She throws herself around on stage and off like a girl possessed, and she's never been anything but proud of the marks she's got to show for it.  
   
"Do you want the long list, or the short?" Quinn asks, looking back at the pathetic contents of the minibar.  
   
"Long." Bert manages a half-hearted snigger at her own innuendo, eliciting a fond eyeroll from Quinn.  
   
"Beer, non-plural," Quinn announces. "We have one beer."  
   
Bert deliberates briefly, then says, "Alright. Get me a beer, then, woman."  
   
"You can fucking get it yourself if you're gonna be like that, asshole," says Quinn, but she pulls it out anyway and hands it to Bert before flopping down on the bed again. Bert cracks it open and takes a long, noisy slurp before offering it to Quinn.  
   
"Quinn Allman," she says, opening her eyes wide and making her best sincere face (which is still significantly less than convincing). "I think I love you."  
   
It's at this point that the door of the hotel room opens and Bob appears in it. Bert ignores him and takes the beer back.  
   
"No, really," she says earnestly to Quinn, pressing the still-cool can to her forehead. "I want to have your babies."  
   
Bob clears his throat pointedly. Bert and Quinn turn as one to look at him.  
   
"Okay, two things," says Bob, unfazed, "One, Bert, Brian told me to tell you to put a fucking shirt on before you get arrested for public indecency for the third time this tour."  
   
Bert smiles briefly at the memories, then pouts. "It's not fair. I'm gonna fucking die of heatstroke. Then where would we be, huh? Brian is trying to stifle my self-expression. He wants me to be _miserable_ and _creatively starved_ , Bobert."  
   
"No," corrects Bob, "He wants you to be un-arrested at least until we hit the tri-state area. And two, you two seriously have to stop complaining when people tell you how fucking married you are."  
   
Bert gestures at the two of them sprawled half-naked on the double bed and sharing the last beer.  
   
"Bob fucking Bryar," she says, her eyes narrowing "Does any of this say _married_ to you?"  
   
Bob surveys the scene in front of him. "Yes," he says, and then, " _Roberta_ ," he adds as an afterthought, because he's a dick like that, and disappears again.  
   
"Doesn't Bob have _other_ people to suck the fun out of? Like, Frank? And Brian's not the boss of me anymore anyway. Where does he get off, stifling my motherfucking self-expression? He didn't make _Frank_ put a shirt on yesterday. _Or_ that dude from Bowling for Soup last week. Fucking _Bob_ ," she mutters, scowling.  
   
"Ooh, who's fucking Bob?"  
   
"Your _mom_. And Bob's a kinky motherfucker, Matt told me that Simple Plan's drum tech told him that Skiba said Underoath's sound guy told him. I – ooh! _Mother_ fucker? Your _mom?_ See what I did there?"  
   
Quinn can admit that she should really have seen that one coming. She pokes Bert none-too-gently in the ribs, interrupting her peals of delighted laughter. "Go shower," she says. "This is the last hotel night for ages, I'm the one who has to suffer when you fucking reek like sweaty, beer-y death."  
   
Bert pushes herself up off the bed and looks down at Quinn with big, wounded eyes that Quinn thinks would be much more effective if Bert was wearing a shirt and her hair wasn't approaching Ray Toro levels of crazy.  
   
"You have cut me to the bone, Allman. The _bone_. You are dead to me. Also, an ex-friend and a rat," she says, with great dignity, then spoils it by turning back to flip Quinn the bird and subsequently tripping over the discarded bra (Quinn's) lying on the carpet by the bathroom door.  
   
Quinn says nothing. She doesn't think she needs to.  
   
Almost as soon as Bert's disappeared, somebody knocks smartly on the door.  
   
"If that's Bob again, tell him we're having hot lesbian sex in here," Bert calls over the sound of running water, evidently having already gotten bored with Quinn the ex-friend.  
   
"What, and tell him he's got to stay out there unless he wants to join in?" Quinn says, making for the door. Bert snorts with laughter, then lets out a string of curses as something clatters against the tiles.  
   
Quinn opens the door to see a small, nervous-looking woman with a big, shiny smile and a voice recorder in her hand. So, very much not Bob, then. And, _shit_ , Quinn had completely forgotten about the interview that was supposed to be happening this morning. Brian is going to kill her. Slowly.  
   
"Can I come in?" asks the reporter.  
   
Quinn hesitates. The answer to that is a resounding _no_ , but she needs a way of saying it that in no way suggests that she needs a moment to check that none of the shit strewn all over the floor could get them arrested.  
   
"Quinn?" yells Bert from the bathroom. "Bitch, what have you done with my motherfucking razors? If you've used the last one I swear to god I'm going to fucking _end_ you..."  
   
Quinn flashes her most winning smile at the unfortunate journalist. "Just a second," she says sweetly, and ducks back inside. "They're on the floor under the sink where you fucking left them, dumbass," she shouts back.  
   
"No they're fucking not! I already looked there! They're... oh. Yeah, there they are. Sorry! I love you!"  
   
"Idiot!" Quinn calls, and sticks her head out of the door again. "Sorry," she says blandly, making a conscious effort to use an acceptable indoor voice, i.e. not loud enough to wake the dead and ideally with no more than three swearwords per sentence. She tries for a smile that's both reassuring and indicative of a mentally healthy person, but it feels strangely constraining. She really has been spending too much time with Bert. "Maybe we should go downstairs and do the interview in the bar?"  
   
 

+

   
"All I'm saying," says Gerard, his hands raised placatingly, "Is that you _are_ kind of married."  
   
Bert fires up at once. "Oh, no _way_ ," she says. "Look who's fucking talking. We're not nearly as married as – "  
   
" – you and Frank," Quinn puts in; she's getting really fucking sick of hearing this, and people are being so fucking hypocritical. "Like, at least we don't – "  
   
" – mack on each other on stage, Jesus _Christ_. Have you even, like – "  
   
" – _seen_ yourselves?"  
   
There's a long silence, and then Gerard says mildly, "You totally do, actually. All the time. Also, you just finished each other's sentences. Like, four times."  
   
Fuck.  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 

 ** __**

.epilogue

   
"You can't say you didn't know this was coming," says Quinn briskly, as Bert seizes Gerard's other arm and shoves a jawbreaker into his mouth to stop him complaining, eliciting a startled squawk.  
   
Frank looks on with interest, but doesn't try to stop them. Gerard makes big, pleading eyes at him, but Frank's only response is an equally big shit-eating grin.  
   
"Be a man, Gee," he says, in a voice conspicuously lacking in sympathy.  
   
"Yeah, be a man. Like Bert," Quinn adds. Bert makes kissy faces at her. Gerard struggles weakly between them as they herd him towards the bathroom, and Quinn tries to avoid letting his hair touch her. She doesn't fundamentally object to Gerard as a person – she actually thinks he's got some really interesting views about repressive gender norms, even if the fifteen-minute diatribes about said views tend to make her want to punch him in the earnest, pretty face. Just, even by hygiene-challenged musician standards, the dude is _seriously_ gross. He makes Bert look positively fragrant.  
   
"Frank, you're helping," Quinn informs him.  
   
"You're fucking kidding me, right? I wouldn't miss this for..." he gropes for something big enough to express the magnitude of his sentiment as he trots in their wake like a tiny, tattooed punk puppy with a lip ring and loose morals. "I wouldn't even miss this for _really_ good weed."  
   
 

+

   
   
"Frank, pass the nail brush?"  
   
"You have a _nail brush?_ Holy shit, you're fucking efficient. Remind me never to fuck with you, I'd _die_."  
   
"You would. Nail brush, please."  
   
Frank obediently passes Quinn the nail brush, and she goes to town on the mess that is Gerard's hands.  
   
"Good Frank," says Bert, giving him her most alarming smile. Gerard whimpers pathetically, and Quinn reflects that while they did let him spit the jawbreaker out when he started hyperventilating, it might have been kinder to wait for a hotel night instead of just ambushing him and hauling him off to the shower block. Well, maybe it'll encourage him to shower of his own volition in future. And at least they waited for a site that _has_ a shower block.  
   
"Guys?" says Gerard miserably. "I'm really, _really_ sorry, whatever I did. I was probably drunk, I don't even remember. Whatever it was, I'll... fix it. Or buy you a new one, or something. Can I go now?"  
   
Quinn pats him affectionately on the cheek. "It's so cute that you think this is some kind of revenge thing."  
   
He looks even more confused. Wet, confused and shirtless, Quinn decides, isn't a good look for him. "It isn't?" he says.  
   
"Nope," she says, taking the hair brush Bert seems to be using to challenge Frank to some kind of bizarre duel and eying Gerard's hair speculatively. "You just really, _really_ stink. And you laughed at me when Bert went all Shamu on my ass when I tried to wash _her_ , so."  
   
"Bitch, are you comparing me to a fucking _killer whale?_ " Bert pauses in her attempt to bite Frank's ear to glare at Quinn.  
   
"I wouldn't dream of it," Quinn deadpans. "Oh, wait, except how I just did. Give me the fucking shampoo, Jesus Christ, what kind of crappy assistant are you anyway?"  
   
Bert hands over the shampoo (actually a cocktail of several hotel-sized samples poured into a Gatorade bottle), and Quinn squeezes about half of the ambivalently-colored stuff out into her hand. Gerard sighs, like, _why must I carry the weight of the world on my thin shoulders?_ , before going limp and evidently deciding that surrender is probably the best way to make this be over soon.  
   
"You," Bert tells him, "Are not nearly as dumb as you look."  
   
"Nearly there, Gee," Frank says encouragingly, which is a blatant lie, but Quinn thinks it's sweet.  
   
"That's sweet," says Bert, beaming. "You two should totally make out if he doesn't, like, melt. Like, thank-fuck-you-survived-I'll-never-leave-you-again kind of thing. That'd be hot."  
   
Frank mumbles something unintelligible and Gerard blushes a violent shade of crimson under the spray of the shower. Quinn looks between them, disbelieving, her hands dripping with shampoo lather.  
   
"You're fucking with us, right?" she says. "You guys seriously don't...?"  
   
Gerard turns even redder under the curtain of his soaked hair, and Quinn wonders abstractedly if his head is actually going to explode. That would be... messy. But not wholly uncool. And probably not _too_ hard to clean off the tiles, either.  
   
"It's not..." starts Gerard lamely.  
   
"Do it, do it, do it," chants Bert, clapping her hands like a child but wearing a positively evil expression. "Kiss him, Frank!"  
   
Frank mutters something that sounds like _oh, for fuck's sake_ , and then he shoves past Quinn and presses up against Gerard, water seeping quickly through his t-shirt and running over his tattoos, hands in Gerard's nasty-ass hair as he pushes him back against the wall and kisses the fuck out of him. Gerard makes a little startled noise, flailing his arms helplessly and soaking Frank even more thoroughly, then _startled_ morphs abruptly into _hungry_ , and his hands are all over Frank's neck, his shoulders, his jaw, under his newly see-through shirt, scrabbling at his hips and trying to pull him even closer.  
   
Quinn stands back, admiring Bert's handiwork, and nods thoughtfully. "Huh," she says. "You were right. Kind of hot."  
   
Frank takes one of his hands off Gerard for just long enough to raise his middle finger at them. "If you don't wanna see how hot it's gonna be when we have awesome semi-public shower sex, you should probably leave now," he says indistinctly, apparently also unwilling to get his tongue out of Gerard's mouth for long enough to answer properly.  
   
Quinn sighs. Just when she'd thought started to think they were getting somewhere with Gerard's personal hygiene, too. Frank's going to fuck his hair up and probably get jizz all over him as well. Not that she's not thrilled that they've finally got their shit together and started their epic romance or whatever the fuck, but. Still.  
   
Bert pats her on the shoulder. "Hey," she says, as Frank whines and starts to grind unashamedly against Gerard's thigh. "Want to go and tell everyone Frank finally found his balls and got the girl and all that jazz?"  
   
"With your help. And since when do you say _all that jazz?_ "  
   
"Since _always_ , loser. And, fuck yeah, with my help. I'm, like, a relationship guru for the world's lame-ass geeks. I'm the motherfucking saint of happy-ever-after. And, hey, at least they're in a shower." 


End file.
